Toddler help!

So DS is 26 months and the last few weeks he has become more and more whingy... he's happy when he's getting full attention, but obviously you can't spend every minute with them. He's become very attached to daddy at the moment who is wrapped around his little finger!! and most times throughout the day it's just a constant noise of whinging and whining!! even if you're trying to do something fun with him, he will whinge because something isn't what he wants...

I was OK with the fact that it's a stage that he's going through - typical frustrated toddler with probably some separation anxiety from his dad and when his dad isn't around, from me...

but the last 2 nights, he has been waking up during the night, just whinging... I'm pretty confident that he's not in any pain etc because he would normally tell us if something's "sore"... but he just wakes up and doesn't cry, no tears, but just whinges and yells to get someone to go into him... he is normally a great sleeper and we don't hear from him from 6.30pm to about 6am... so to wake up to him about 5 times the night before last and then about 20 times (no exaggeration!) last night, I gave in and put him in bed with us.

then as soon as he woke this morning, it was straight away whinging again!! whinging because we leave the room, whinging because he wants something, whinging because he can't do something...

he normally has really good communication with us, he uses good words and can usually tell us what is wrong or what he wants and he also uses great manners... so now, to turn to this, it's just baffled us!

He doesn't eat properly, he's really fussy with food and it was getting to the point of fighting with him at every meal, until I just gave up and now I offer it and if he doesn't eat it I throw it and he just doesn't seem to care. he would go a whole day eating nothing if I didn't try and get him to eat something... OR if he could eat junk food, he'd eat that all day, so we've banned him from most of the junk food unless he eats something healthy first then maybe a biscuit or custard or ice cream after dinner is OK. I've tried so many things!! and nothing is working!!

I know it's just a stage, but i'm 30 weeks pregnant, very very tired, i'm still working full time... he loves daycare, but even they have said he's been changing and being whingy and "not like him"...

I'm totally baffled about what to do, because the last few weeks have been FULL ON and now for the nights to turn to this, I'm just struggling to keep my sh*t together!!!

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My toddler did this when I was pregnant. It was extremely difficult to cope with so you have my sympathy. I just had to be as understanding as possible because I think they can feel a big change is happening, especially as your bump gets bigger! It all magically got better as soon as bub was born - I was so worried about coping with a new baby as well but DD1 just became this amazing big sister.

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My toddler is a bit older and going through the same stage. Part of it could be the family changes (little brother arrived a few months ago) but I also think her molars are coming through. In the past she was good at telling us her teeth hurt, but I think the molar pain could be more generalised so she doesn't realise it's her teeth hurting.

Our children's library coordinator, who is a qualified kinder teacher, recommended that we stress 'talk in a smiley voice' whenever she whinges to model the preferred behaviour.

How many molars are 2 year olds meant to get. My DD is behaving much like yours, but she has 8 molars already 4 up top and 4 below.

She has them all. Are the back ones fully through? They may still be causing her some pain if not. My DS went through a really hard couple of months with the 2yr old molars. Nights when he was up 20 times like OP's DS. Like PP's have said I would say this is probably the cause.

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